I'm starting this thread with the simple question -- after installing FireFox, then how do you start it? I have googled, and read various documents from Mozilla, FreeBSD Ports, Linux, Debian, SCO, ad nauseam, but I'm still just not getting it.

After a make install clean, all seems well, but when attempting to start the browser, a message such as "no display specified" is the result.

From what I've read, sounds like an "xterm" session or something needs to be started as a subsystem for FireFox to run in. Can this be real? Seems to me that FireFox should be able to prepare it own run environment. What am I missing? (This is probably one of those things that makes perfect sense . . .once you understand it )

Bingo! Precisely it . . ."an X server". Well, you see, all I've read are comments like "after the make, all it takes is $ firefox" , but never any mention of "Oh, by the way, you've got to start an X server." I'm not even trying to suggest that I know everything about programming applications, but I've written a lot of interactive code over the past 35 years. If I were writing a startup shell script or an OS/400 CLP to invoke an application . . .and if the application needed a running X server (whatever), then I'd put in something like "if an X server is not running, then (duh) start one".

This may sound incredible, but since around January 2002, I've run FreeBSD v4.11 with only a command line console. Just last evening, I ported via the internet v7.2 and made FireFox3, so this is a new thing for me. As I mentioned before, this will make perfect sense once I understand it

I apologize for any disrespect, but "FireFox" is a graphical web browser typically used by people that already have an existing X environment setup on their Unix-based desktops.

Now that you've "updated" this system to version 7.2 of FreeBSD, presuming it's local.. setting up X is typically quite simple these days, but you will probably want to decide on a windowing environment for X.

If you can post a dmesg here in [code][/code], we can attempt to help you with platform specific things..

When X was developed at MIT, memory was still quite expensive. Thus, it was decided that X's functionality would be treated akin to a "kernel" such that all X applications would simply call down to common shared libraries to conserve memory & promote simultaneous execution of multiple applications at the same time. The alternative would be to statically link all libraries into each application which would be both redundant & increase application size. The result is if an X application does not find necessary libraries already loaded, then it will abort with a "no display specified" message.

This is a common practice adopted by other (emulating) environments such as Windows; if an inadequate subsystem is prescribed (trying to execute a graphical application as a console app...), bail with an equally cryptic message.

Yes, I do understand. On a "sidebar" note, I am amazed that the make file architecture works as well as it does. I told my wife last evening that the dollar co$t to start from scratch, design and code the monster would involve millions of US dollars . . .relative on what you value your time . . .$25, $75, $145 . . .or more. All in all, Free/Open et al BSD is a bargin.

I'm also a fugitive from the original FreeBSD forum, and I have to say that through the years, the help that I've received from other members is invaluable.

Regarding my experience with my latest install (FreeBSD v7.2R, FireFox v3.0.10,1, Xorg, etc.) . . .all I needed was a little nudge in the right direction to help me see the forest in spite of the trees. BTW, my Xorg install finished, wife brought home groceries, I cooked, and finally with a little tweaking, I have FireFox v3 running on my v7.2 FreeBSD install.

Of note, I am absolutely amazed at how fast web pages are served up . . .compared to the same performance on my Windoze XP Pro workstation. We retrieve pages from several gov/mil websites that have certificates that Windoze/IE does not "like", and that negotiation apparently kludges the conversation. Also, I suspect that there is a lot of Windoze overhead involved in the entire process.

I've still got a few configuration things to work out . . .wheel on the mouse doesn't work, and html document fonts are not per the cascading style sheet specs. Also, I may need to ask some questions regarding viewing of MS/PowerPoint presentations, Acrobat PDF's etc., but I'll do some reading first.

Actually . . .that's what I expected . . .I did notice a lot of X11 stuff zipping by on stdout as the FireFox make was in progress, never-the-less, X seemed to not want to start . . .probably (obviously) my fault for not configuring X as you've commented. I assumed that FireFox "included" the graphic server layer (for the lack of a better explanation), and I've mentioned that I've several years of interactive application programming. My style is to focus on error, exception and information messaging (quite juxtaposed to the Way of Windoze); consequently, when I attempted to start FireFox outside of a graphic layer, then I concluded that something was wrong with FireFox because there was no message, e.g., "Hey dummy, you need to start X-Windows first!"